Not in the Seat, but in the Narrative: Ken Kaiko and Mr. Saji's Roundtable Cultural Theory - circa 1976

Not in the Seat, but in the Narrative: Ken Kaiko and Mr. Saji's Roundtable Cultural Theory - circa 1976

In the mid-1970s, the "round-table discussion" format was established as one cultural entity in the Japanese literary and publishing world. Especially in the midst of the rapid social changes that followed the postwar period through the period of rapid economic growth, roundtable discussions had become one of the main expressions of "magazine culture" as a place where multiple writers and critics could freely exchange their words.

In this dialogue, Ken Kaiko and Saji discuss the fundamental discrepancy between the "interview culture/record of dialogue" as seen in Europe and the U.S. and the Japanese "roundtable culture. For example, in Europe, dialogue and ideas among writers are recorded and documented, exposing the thoughts of individuals - such "personal histories of ideas" tend to be emphasized, while Japanese round-table discussions tend to emphasize multi-person exchanges, digressions, laughter and jokes, the humidity and atmosphere of the place, and the importance of discussion and debate. On the other hand, Japanese round-table discussions tended to emphasize exchanges among several people, digressions, laughter and jokes, the humidity and atmosphere of the place, discussion, and the "joint generation" of ideas.

These roundtable discussions were not only a forum for discussing ideas and literature, but also a device for highlighting the networks and communities of the literary world and regional sensitivities, such as the differences between the Kanto region's logic and Kansai's sense of humor, and the differences between the two regions. In other words, it was a culture that mediated a different kind of "conversation," "atmosphere," and "relationship" than writing.

In recent years, some academic studies have focused on the format of the round-table discussion and its historical nature. For example, one research project has examined in detail the process of the establishment of round-table discussions in Japan, the characteristics of postwar round-table discussions, and the editorial structure of round-table articles in magazines. (https://kaken.nii.ac.jp/ja/grant/KAKENHI-PROJECT-15520122?utm_source=chatgpt.com)

In this sense, the dialogue between Kaiko and Saji is typical of the ideological community nurtured in the "narrative culture" of roundtable discussions, and a mirror of the state of the literary world, publishing, and media at the time. The lightness, playfulness, digressions, and communal nature of the roundtable discussions were the antithesis of the "literature" that tended to be heavy-handed and individualistic, and a symbol of the literary and artistic sensibility of the 1970s. and one of the symbols of the literary and artistic sensibility of the 1970s.